


not too long

by verity



Series: tween wolf [9]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post Hale Fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-08 05:11:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verity/pseuds/verity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek starts spending a lot of time out in the woods. "There could be predators," he says, when Laura asks. "I mean—we have to take care of our territory, right? Someone has to."</p><p>"Yes," Laura says. "Someone has to."</p>
            </blockquote>





	not too long

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to Scout, Ashe, and Mijra for their help with this part.
> 
>  **content notes** : not actually sure how to warn for planning to commit homicide, but there you go.

Laura decides to kill Peter the morning after they return to Beacon Hills.

She's lying in the bed in Dr. Deaton's spare room, Derek next to her, still snoring into the pillow. He didn't sleep the whole drive back from where they stopped in Illinois, Laura pulling the car off to the side of the highway to retch into a ditch. Then she drove the whole way back, numb and empty, let Derek snuffle and cry, pretended not to notice. He stopped crying after a while, after he got a text message on his phone that left him shaking but silent. Laura didn't ask.

Now the sun is coming up, peeking through the blinds. They'll be safe here, under Deaton's watchful eye, safer than anywhere else Laura knows. That doesn't mean they can rely on Deaton: he's not pack, can't be, wouldn't want to. Everything they have is each other, and what's lumbering through the forest, half alive and half dead. Peter is the youngest of her mother's siblings, gentle and shy. He was still in high school when Laura was born, and she grew up with him rattling around the house, back when her grandmother was still alpha. Derek's favorite uncle, his wife as close to Laura as a sister.

The thing that survived the fire isn't Peter anymore. She can feel him through the bond, twisted and animal. As long as he's alive, Laura and Derek will be bound to him, and instead of protection, he'll be a danger.

Derek sighs, twitches in his sleep, restless. Laura pulls him to her, arm around his chest, cupping his hand in hers. The instinct comes as easy to her as breathing.

—

The police say it was an accident. "Electrical fire," the sheriff tells Laura. They've kept Derek out of it, for the most part, so it's just her, sitting in the sagging chair opposite the desk. Her mom campaigned for the sheriff; the placard on the desk says _Sheriff Robert Lufford_ , fake wood veneer carved away beneath to reveal a white plastic interior, yellowed now. "Started in the laundry room, we think. Your family went into the basement to get away from the smoke, but the back of the house collapsed in."

Laura doesn't say anything, looks down at her hands, folded in her lap.

"I'm very sorry for your loss," the sheriff says, gently.

She waits a few days to go out, to see. The ring of mountain ash has been scuffed away by the passage of Beacon Hills' finest, leaving a faint trace that Laura's nose can barely pick up. When she drags her fingers through the dirt, it tingles for a moment, then: nothing.

Their cars are still parked in the driveway. No one bothered to slash the tires.

—

When her family was alive, they were Laura's anchor; they were all each others' anchors, collective, tethering each other to their human lives and the land. She woke every morning with the comforting presence of her alpha simmering just below her consciousness, felt it when she suffered, felt her alpha's disappointment, too, when she faltered and misbehaved. The last time Laura's alpha died, it was her grandmother, quiet in her sleep, and her mother took up the mantle as gently. Their family grieved together, united by their alpha's grief and anger and love. There's a void in her chest now when Laura wakes up. She doesn't know what that means.

Derek goes back to school a few weeks later. Dr. Deaton is going to be named his guardian in accordance with her parents' will. Laura doesn't fight it. They can't leave as long as Peter is here, and it's better for Derek to have—someone. Somewhere. If everything goes wrong.

"You can stay with me as well," Deaton says, sitting across the kitchen table from her, bowls of cereal in front of both of them. Derek's in class; Deaton doesn't open his clinic until after noon on Mondays. "We'll make room. I know you'd prefer to be close to Derek."

"That's… good of you," Laura says, words measured. Accepting a favor from Deaton means that he'll have a hold on her, of one kind or another. "What do you want from me in return?"

"Your word," he says. "That you won't go out looking for those who set the fire as long as you and Derek remain with me."

Laura drops the spoon she's been dragging through her bowl; it clatters against the rim.

The fire is easiest to accept as status quo: her family was alive, now they are dead, there's nothing she can do about it. Their house burned for hours, but it was drowned ashes by the time she and Derek came—not home. What occupies Laura's thoughts now is not reprisal, but how they'll survive here, with a vengeful ghost for an alpha and no guard from the outside world. "Why?" she says.

Deaton looks at her, disgustingly patient and inscrutable, like she's a child. "Do you think your family provoked their murders? You are not putting only yourself in danger while either of you are under my protection."

"Is that what this is?" Laura says. "Protection?"

"I need your word," Deaton says. He takes a bite of his cereal.

—

Killing an alpha werewolf isn't impossible, but it will be hard. Alpha wounds linger, not as long as they would for a human, but long enough to incapacitate, turn Laura from a weak threat into prey. She never saw her alpha raise a hand to anyone. The Hale pack was safe and settled here for decades, undisturbed even by rogues, the strength of its members fueling its boundaries. _You are not welcome here_ , their woods sang to intruders. _This is not your place._

Laura is eighteen. A month ago, her mother kissed her cheek, said, "Go on, honey, get on the road. You're going to have a great adventure, and you'll feel us wherever you go."

Tears came to her mother's eyes. Laura put her hand to heart, reflex. "I know, Mama," she said, homesickness already tugging at her gut, strung between between the sure knowledge of her departure and the promise of her eventual return. "I will. I'll—be back. Soon."

"Thanksgiving," her father said, coming in to embrace them both. Kelly did, too, sneaking her arms around Laura's waist one last time. "Not too long."

"Come _on_ ," Derek said, slinging the keys around his finger. He was leaning against the minivan, the newest of the family cars, even if it didn't get the best mileage. "You're taking forever."

"Shut up, I hate you," Kelly said. She pushed her way in between Laura and their parents. "You have to send me postcards, okay?"

"We''ll see," Laura said, bent to kiss her sister's head.

She'd said goodbye to everyone else last night, the usual Sunday dinner, hugs and kisses and money slipped in her back pocket—"Have some fun, girl," said Jessica; "In case you need a taxi," said Rosemary—so it was just the five of them, this last moment. Perfect.

Their land doesn't sing anymore. Derek starts spending a lot of time out in the woods. "There could be predators," he says, when Laura asks. "I mean—we have to take care of our territory, right? Someone has to."

"Yes," Laura says. "Someone has to."

—

Laura has the problem set for her chemistry course spread out in front of her, when she feels him, someone new, the connection tenuous at first. It's been a full year since the fire. Derek's out with his girlfriend, or whatever she is, Deaton's at work: the house is empty. Her chest feels full.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [ladyofthelog](http://ladyofthelog.tumblr.com) on tumblr.


End file.
